


i seek the heavens

by TheGoodDoctor



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Temeraire Fusion, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Rescue, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, but they deserve it, no dragons will be injured in the making of this story, some men tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGoodDoctor/pseuds/TheGoodDoctor
Summary: This is where the dragons lie.25th April, 1848Her Majesty's Dragons Terror and Erebus abandoned aerial travel on the 22nd April, 5 leagues NNW of this, having been beset with medical complaints rendering manned flight impossible since 12th Sept 1846. The officers and crews consisting of 50 souls under the command of Captain F. R. M. Crozier landed here — in Lat. 69°37’42’’ Long. 98°41’.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 18
Kudos: 42





	i seek the heavens

**Author's Note:**

> my recommended listening:  
> [it knows me by avi kaplan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6GtsRGsmq0&ab_channel=AviKaplan)  
> [gmf by john grant](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekFWPsXXcg0&ab_channel=JohnGrant)  
> [underneath the stars by kate rusby and the grimethorpe colliery band](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e38i3IpY20A&ab_channel=KateRusby-Topic)  
> [icy acres by the longest johns and katie sky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugl0vgQm_6M&ab_channel=TheLongestJohns)
> 
> i started writing this shortly after lying on my bed trying not to cry about cows (big, gentle, good) so rest assured, no dragons will be harmed in the making of this fic.  
> it has also been a long time since i read temeraire or indeed watched the terror. this is going to be inaccurate even for a fantasy au.

The air within is cool and damp, like that found in the depths of the cavernous earth; dense and cloying, it is scented with the thin, clear notes of fresh snow, the petrified vegetable smell of lichen, the acrid, acidic stench of sulphur in a small space. Francis breathes deeply, filling his lungs with the distinctive unpleasantness of it all and exhaling all the hearty stink of a warm London springtime. His lip twitches upward despite his rather grey mood: be it ever so humble…

As his eyes adjust to the gloom, blinking away the sunshine of the outdoors, he hears two great inhales mirror his own and then the vast rustling of some large movement on the cool stone floor. Francis steps cautiously forward and squints slightly until he sees, at last, the huge shapes sprawled against the far wall. The smaller of the two seems to grow before his very eyes, dark and indistinct and _huge_ in a way which still makes the rabbit hindbrain part of him freeze in visceral terror, until the vision coalesces into his own familiar great black dragon looking imperiously down upon him with her clear, icy eyes. Francis holds his breath instinctively; they have been kept apart for rather longer than he would have wished, but there had been Admiralty meetings to attend, a spell with his sisters, the...business with Miss Cracroft, and he is now only _mostly_ certain she will forgive him. He offers her a respectful half bow.

Terror tilts her head on one side, looking at him without expression. Abruptly, her huge head swings forward and Francis is spared just a moment to resign himself to being eaten by his dear capricious dragon for the injustice of being away from her side a whole two weeks before her cold muzzle is rubbing enthusiastically over the side of his face and head, knocking his hat off and brushing his hair entirely backward. He groans in amused irritation at her antics and she rumbles a delighted laugh, pressing her head to his chest so that he can scritch his blunt fingers up and down her muzzle.

“Terror,” he greets her, and means it.

“Yes,” she replies smugly, twisting so that he focusses his attentions on the smaller scales under her jawbone and she can meet his gaze with one dancing eye. “I am.”

She isn’t, of course, _really_ his. Not legally, and certainly not according to any government branch which pretends to have control over her. It is only that he had, by dint of sheer fortune (good or bad, he has never been quite able to decide), captained the ship that had intercepted the whaler attempting to conceal the precious cargo of eggs which should, according to rules made by and for the British Empire, have been handed over to Greenwich posthaste and certainly not sold for profit in New York. That bit, at least, probably _was_ good fortune for its monetary reward alone; the merit of his fate had become quickly more questionable when Terror had popped her head through the swirling silver of her shell and immediately set about attempting to eat any and all magnetic instruments she could use her incredible intellect to get her claws on. With Erebus born not long after, their navigation back to Britain had been nothing short of miraculous and at least partially dependent upon the stars. But Francis had been so _careful_ ; he had been at home on the sea, and had had no particular desire to be the unwanted naval Irishman in an ex-Etonian boys’ club of snobbish airmen. He had heard the rumours of how this happened, sometimes: the wrong person bonds with the dragon, and one or other party has to be destroyed for the aerial corps to retain control over the situation. So never name the dragon, never let it get too close, never, _for Christ’s sake, Francis, never let the damn things sleep in your bloody bunk with you!_ And Francis had made the effort to open his mouth in the face of Blanky’s whisper-shouted tirade, breathed deeply under the weight of two small dragons curled up on his chest and feet and puffing frost clouds calmly over his blankets, and said with as much dignity as he could muster, _they weren’t here when I fell asleep so help get the damn things OFF ME, THOMAS-_

And he had tried. He had been as curmudgeonly as possible with the hatchlings, he had kept them away from the crew and as isolated as is possible on a small ship with two dragons of rapidly increasing size, and he had never given them names. Only - Terror had been a terror. A real menace: she ate compasses, chewed sextants out of shape, licked maps into smudged messes in order to proclaim that she hated the taste of ink. She was worse than the puppy Francis’ sister had once had, only less inclined to shed, and in his irritation Francis had been forced to tell her so. He had not quite realised the scale of his error until the three of them had been presented to the Aerial Corps and the Admiral, sidelining Francis entirely after a short black look, had asked the dragons if they had names.

“My name is Terror,” she had answered promptly. “I live in the Great Cabin, but I am allowed on the Quarterdeck to stretch my wings. This is Francis,” she said, inclining her head towards him and forcing the Admiral to acknowledge his existence once more. The man - he hadn’t introduced himself to Francis, presumably deeming the acquaintance trivial at best - had directed a glare more vicious than grapeshot at him under vast bushy grey brows, and Francis in turn had aimed his glower upon the proud, pretty little dragon sitting neatly beside her rather less alert companion. “And this,” she said, turning her pale eyes with faint disdain upon the pale, sprawling dragon beside her who was tracking the progress of a fly around the room like a kitten, “is my mate.”

“Do you have a name, too?” the Admiral had gritted out, trying once more to attract the male’s attention.

“Oh, no,” Terror had informed him with absolute certainty. “Francis hasn’t named him, because he likes me better.”

“Do I?” he found himself saying. Despite himself - despite _everything_ \- she had always amused him. He did like her.

“Yes,” Terror said, meeting his gaze ice blue eye to ice blue eye.

And that had been it. The Admiral - Barrow, he was eventually and begrudgingly informed - had managed to press a noble and classical name upon Erebus, but Terror had cheerfully turned down all suggestions that she might like, instead, to be called Victoria or Aurora or Pleione. She had, too, pleasantly declined any suggestion that she might like to choose a different captain to Francis, and then had bared her really quite large and tremendously sharp teeth in an aggressively friendly smile. Ex-Etonian boys’ club it was; Terror had made her will known.

Francis is abruptly startled from his recollections by the sudden disappearance of Terror’s head from beneath his fingers and Erebus’ mighty skull thudding down onto his feet in her place as he shoves her thoughtlessly out of the way to take his turn as the centre of attention. “Hello!” he booms cheerfully, leaning his great head into Francis’ legs like a huge cat and forcing him to cling to Erebus’ horns to stay upright. As well as being far paler, blue-green like a glacier, Erebus is also a good deal bigger than his mate for all that he’s a few days younger - not that he himself seems to know it. Ross, in his excitement to have such a charming and biddable fledgling, had treated Erebus like a labrador in his infancy, always allowing him to jump up for affection and lie on people’s feet. Erebus’ head, with his jaw on Francis’ boots, now reaches as high as Francis’ epaulettes, but he would be surprised if the dragon had ever stopped to notice that.

“Good morning,” Francis says, smiling as Terror huffs in indignation at her mate’s antics. He fusses the space behind Erebus’ long curling horns, almost translucent like coiled icicles, and the dragon hums with enough force to make the floor rumble.

“Where is James?” Erebus asks, rolling onto his side as Terror prowls around behind Francis to enclose him in the circle of their huge bodies. “I want to see his egg. Has it hatched?”

“It’s a baby, not an egg,” Terror corrects smugly, nosing up to Francis’ side so that he can switch hands and have white scales under his left hand and black under his right. “And it will be _born,_ not hatched.”

“Which it has not yet been,” Francis adds apologetically and Erebus huffs. “It may not arrive before we depart, I am afraid. I am sorry for it too,” he says over Erebus’ whine. “I am supposed to be its godfather, for reasons best known to its parents, and I can hardly perform the office from Greenland.”

“If the baby had hatched, would James have come with us?” Erebus asks, and Francis has to close his eyes against the crashing wave of miserable, pitiful want that sweeps over him at the idea. _God,_ if only James were coming with them. If only it could be Antarctica all over again: he would take the cold and the fear and even that great aerial storm that had had the dragons tangled in one another’s gear, spiralling towards the icy sea in an inexorable fatal spin, and then ripped apart and separated in the darkness, out of sight and alone in a vast expanse of nothingness - he would do it all again, if only for the knowledge that, when reunited, it would be with James Clark Ross. His first and only friend in the Aerial Corps. He remembers the nights back in Hobart, sneaking out in the night to curl up with James in the stables in the narrow space between Erebus and Terror just to remember that all four of them made it out alive, shaking hand in shaking hand - and then he remembers Anne, lovely Anne, and then tries to think of neither at all.

“No,” Terror says gently. She leans her head carefully into Francis’ hip in a steadying gesture which he appreciates more than words can express. Terror is huge and vicious and proud and clever and she is the thing that loves him best in all the world; often, he is inclined to think, the only thing that loves him at all. “James has to stay here with his wife - you remember Anne.”

“Oh! Yes,” Erebus says, brightening. “I like her.” Terror shares a look with Francis which manages to shake a slight smile from him; she loves her mate very well, despite the fact that - or perhaps _because_ \- he likes any and all people and things with a degree of blind ignorance bordering on stupidity. It is never tremendously difficult to see why Ross had treated him like an overgrown puppy.

“And how did you like your new captain?” Francis says with an effort to bolster his own cheer and preparing for the inevitable. “I understand he visited yesterday.”

“I like New James very well,” Erebus says cheerfully, shifting his head and narrowing his eyes in satisfaction.

Francis turns to Terror with one eyebrow raised. “The new one’s not called James as well, is he?”

“James _Fitzjames_ , no less,” she replies, showing off her huge teeth in a grin which she knows humans find unsettling and yet indulges in anyway.

“Did they think he wouldn’t notice the change if his captains had the same name?” he says, cocking one thumb over his shoulder in the vague direction of the administrative buildings. Terror elects not to answer, but her silence speaks volumes of her general opinions and Francis barks a laugh.

“I would notice, too,” Erebus complains, pressing his chin closer to hunt attention.

“Of course,” Francis croons soothingly as he scratches the dragon’s jawbone obligingly. “Of course. We shall all - miss James, I’m sure.” Terror nudges his hip again and he breathes through it. The waves are easier to ride with Terror and Erebus to sympathise, but they do come more often here, where James’ absence is most noticeable; it’s like grieving, but without even the dignity of James having died. “But I am glad you like this new James well enough too.”

Erebus hums his earth-shaking agreement. Terror tilts her head. “He will do,” she pronounces thoughtfully. “He is very respectful, and would not do anything which we had not allowed, although that Franklin was with him and did try to encourage him to override us.” Francis huffs: Franklin has met the dragons before, and he would have thought the man might have learned something from the experience. But Sir John has _ideas_ about God and Man and Beast and the relative hierarchies thereof, and Francis knows his dragons well enough to know that when Terror says _we_ and _us_ in correlation with _allow_ and _override_ she means that she had set rules, and Erebus had been biddable enough to go along with them. Franklin won’t be told what to do by a dragon, and will barely acknowledge that female dragons have as much intelligence, free will, and bite power as their male counterparts. This will be a long, long expedition, if Francis is to stand up for Terror’s autonomy at every turn, but he’ll be damned if he elects to do ought otherwise.

At least this _James_ seems to be an ally.

“Well, if you like him,” he says, deferring to her judgement.

She smiles again. “I do. He made me laugh and he tells good stories. He did very well at the Academy, I am told.”

Internally, Francis winces. Academy boys are the worst kinds of snob, in his experience; half a hundred anecdotes to hand for every sentence, ready to reference something that, of course, every pilot understands - _only of course you don’t, do you, old boy? Well, never mind, suppose you’ve picked up most of it by now, eh?_ And this from scraps of lads half his age! At one school or another all their soft lives, when at their age he’d been scrambling up ratlines and hauling ropes seven years already, and they _suppose_ he might have _picked up_ a thing or two? But he doesn’t voice this, because in his heart of hearts he knows that he would have benefited greatly from their knowledge and training himself in those early days of struggling it out with Terror. It was always much easier for Ross and Erebus, in which at least one party knew mostly what was going on at all times; Terror and he had forged every scrap of expertise in the fiery pits of blood and sweat and bitter, acrid spite. He knows, too, that he wouldn’t wish an inexperienced captain on any dragon, but least of all his own dear sweet-hearted Erebus.

But he can’t voice his frustration, either; Terror, for all her cleverness, cannot assemble the logic of why humans don’t like him as well as she does. It’s flattering, but also unhelpful. His being Irish and naval and of only middling wealth is of as much concern to her as the colour of his hair, and she cannot fathom why it should mean more to anyone else. Her own judgement is clearly the best, by virtue of being her own; the reasoning Francis provides is of no logical sense to her, and so she dismisses it; all of which taken into consideration, their dislike of him is foolish and irrelevant. It makes for a certain lack of sympathy and understanding, all told.

“He tells me, too, that he has no intention to go off getting married and such,” Terror adds, “and so seems to me a most sensible sort of man.” Francis tries to smother a wince but doesn’t quite catch it in time; Terror remembers and falters, awkwardly drawing her head back a little. “I mean - for Erebus. I have nothing against marriage generally. If it should make you - make a person happy, I suppose they had ought to do it.”

Francis offers her a sad little smile and reaches out his hand. “I suppose they had,” he agrees, “but they suppose that they oughtn’t marry me.”

Her cool dark scales are smooth and familiar under his palm, her head sliding back to his side like a snake seeking warmth and light. “Well, then they are tremendously stupid,” she says indignantly.

“Sophia - Miss Cracroft is not stupid,” he reminds her gently, even as his heart is warmed by her instant allegiance.

“Oh,” Terror says. “No, she isn’t.” The dragon thinks, turning over these two truths she cannot reconcile: Sophia Cracroft is no fool, and yet has also elected not to spend her life with Francis. “Well, I cannot understand it. I should even have let her ride beside you, if she cared to.”

Francis chokes out a laugh despite himself. “A boon indeed - you shall have every eligible woman in London falling at my feet for my hand.”

“Then I certainly shan’t let your wife ride after all!” Terror says indignantly, pulling back to look down her muzzle at him. “I am certainly not sorry that you aren’t staying here whilst we go North.”

“I thought you liked this new James,” he teases. “What if there was some new Francis to take my place, whom you liked just as well?”

Terror snorts contemptuously and turns her head away. “Francis Crozier,” she says with a proud set of her head, “there is no person in all the world whom I like _just as well_ as you.”

He closes his eyes on a ghastly, sad little smile, breathing deeply through the abrupt wave of pain. Sophia had always professed to like him, and yet not enough; she had not liked his station, or his prospects, or the fact of his dragon even if she had liked Terror herself well enough. She had not been willing to put aside these parts of him and love what remained; she would never commit herself to him if there were possibly hope of better. Terror remains the only living creature that has chosen him above all others: Sophia would not have him, James would not reciprocate with the same intensity, the Aerial Corps accepted him only for want of other options.

Terror makes a tiny worried noise, disproportionate to her grand size, and presses her forehead to his own. “Thank you, my dear,” he manages to whisper. “Why should I have ever asked for more?”

She presses into him again and he has to wrap his arm around her muzzle to stay on his feet. Erebus shifts beside them, awakening from his brief nap, and then a throat is cleared from the doorway behind Francis. He spins awkwardly to face the intruder: a foppish man with one fist held politely before his wide mouth, long lines pressed into his cheeks by the light, amused smile hiding there. Terror rears up over his head and Francis is blessed with the brief look of fear that flashes over the man’s face - but then she subsides easily, and Francis shoots her a quick frown. “Sorry, old man,” the newcomer says, recovering his cheer with speed. “Not interrupting, am I? But then, it’s as old Rathbone used to say, eh?” He contorts his face into an obvious mimicry of a cross old man and modulates his voice into something upper-crust and gruff. “A bond with a dragon is the most important one a man can have - oh but of course,” he says, dropping the act, “you weren’t at the Academy, I understand - you are Captain Crozier, are you not?”

Francis glowers with furious embarrassment at the man. How dare he! Not only is Francis to be disdained by all but his dragon, he is to be disdained even for the dragon itself - mocked, because there is one thing in all the world that _does_ love him? “Captain James Fitzjames, I presume,” he grits out.

Fitzjames brightens. “No introductions needed, I see! Does my reputation precede me?” He tosses his hair and contrives to sparkle his eyes at Francis. The audacity - damnable man!

“I have consulted Erebus for his opinion of you,” Francis says stiffly. He means it at least partially as a warning: he will know if the dragons decide _not_ to care for this new captain. At the sound of his own name, Erebus appears to awaken fully; he lumbers to his feet and goes to headbutt Fitzjames affectionately.

Fitzjames laughs. He appears entirely unconcerned by Francis’ words, if he picked up on the subtext at all. “I dare say this is good, isn’t it? Not a disguised attempt at doing me a mischief?”

Erebus pulls back. “I would never!” he says indignantly.

Fitzjames laughs again, his long fingers finding the space behind his horns where Erebus most likes to be scratched with surprising precision. “No indeed, you are a splendid beast. Suppose you said nice things about me to Captain Crozier, did you?”

Francis looks sidelong at Terror at this blatant display of fishing for compliments, but to his surprise it doesn’t seem to bother her. Perhaps she is only pleased with how he appears to take care of her mate. That, at least, _is_ a point in the man’s favour. 

“You are not quite as I expected, Francis,” Fitzjames says to Francis. “I always thought you jolly roving tars had red faces and barrel chests - heart of oak, and all that. But you could fit right in at the Academy, I dare say.”

Terror looks pleased at him, as if this is a compliment or indeed meant as such. Francis folds his arms and raises one eyebrow at the man. “You, Captain Fitzjames, are exactly what I expected. And perhaps more.” Fitzjames looks like he wants to be pleased, but can’t reconcile this desire with Francis’ tone. _Good._ Francis’ disdain for the Academy is well-documented and, in Fitzjames’ case, apparently well-earned. Francis turns his back on the other captain, stroking a hand down Terror’s neck. “Would you like to run some maneuvers?” he asks quietly. “You and I are in sore need of practise.”

“Care for company?” Fitzjames chips in when Terror nods, even though Francis was _clearly_ speaking only to Terror and had his back to Fitzjames.

Francis scrambles up onto Terror’s shoulders, foregoing the usual safety precautions for today because he simply cannot bear to remain in the other man’s company a moment longer. From this vantage point, he can really look down upon Fitzjames as Terror stands tall. “I wouldn’t dare get in the way of Academy drills,” he says, with as much disdain as he can muster. “Good day.”

* * *

“Sir, Erebus is heading in the wrong - that is to say, not the direction I had expected.”

Francis snaps his telescope closed decisively. He is enjoying this. “So they are, Lieutenant Little.”

He can feel Little’s eyes on him, waiting expectantly for a corrective signal to be ordered. Francis tucks his hands behind his back and continues staring out towards the white expanse far before them between the silver tips of Terror’s horns. Little shifts uncomfortably and then regrets it, clinging to his harness line to keep his feet until his balance realigns with a dragon in motion.

“Terror tells me,” Blanky says conversationally from behind Francis’ other shoulder, “that you were a little short with Captain Fitzjames when you met the other week.” Francis’ gaze upon Terror’s ears becomes briefly rather narrowed. “Not at all friendly. Said _good day_ in a tone which even she thought was a bit much.” Admittedly, that is rather poor; Terror’s grasp of conversational nuance is not the most refined, and if _she_ had noticed his rudeness then Fitzjames must have felt it like a blow. 

But equally, the man had not improved upon further acquaintance in social settings or the training they had carried out in Greenwich. All parties and dinners had been interminably boring and over them Fitzjames had held court with the aplomb of King Arthur and with as many legends too: China, the Euphrates, his days as a wingman on Clio, all dressed to best impress. If the ratio of embellishment to truth was better than two to one Francis would - would take Terror and Erebus both and live as a hermit in an igloo on the Ross Ice Shelf, and damn them all. If these stories were the basis for Fitzjames’ captaincy it might be best for dragons and men all if he did. In training Fitzjames had wanted to _race_ the dragons, as if time trials might be the secret to the passage rather than endurance and the great unlikelihood of creating a covert where the dragons bound for the Kamchatka Sea might rest, and then whilst running drills the man had unclipped his harness and gone running after a rigging boy who hadn’t attached his harness correctly and was in peril of falling. Both had taken a tumble and ended up hanging from Erebus’ belly rigging, and in the resulting chaotic panic two more rigging boys had abandoned their harnesses to make yet another rescue attempt, the third lieutenant had done near irreparable damage to the rigging with a bargepole extended in aid, and Erebus had nearly flown into a wall whilst twisting his head to get a good look at what was going on. And all that Fitzjames would do about it afterwards was toss back his curls and laugh! “No harm done,” he had said brightly, and ruffled the starstruck rigging boy’s hair - no harm, as if the Aerial Corps were not already strictly budgeting the venture and would take repair costs out of more essential funds; as if Erebus, in want of _any_ captaining or command, had not almost seriously injured himself and all aboard him; as if, for want of any discipline, Fitzjames had not frankly _encouraged_ further recklessness in his crew. It was, admittedly, a very brave thing to have done, but it was also thoughtlessness bordering on idiocy. Captains may not take that kind of risk to their person: they must think, and judge, and properly account for the effect of a polar dragon’s mild magnetic field upon their navigational equipment, and _then_ act.

“I should only hate for anyone to think you might be deliberately sabotaging him for the crimes of _not_ being Sir James Ross, is all,” Blanky opines thoughtfully and Francis sighs.

He brings his loudhailer to his mouth. “My dear,” he calls toward Terror’s head, watching her ears flick back in his direction like an overly large cat. “Would you call to Erebus and ask him to confirm his heading, for we believe we have the right of it.”

“Certainly,” she replies, and then emits a gloriously vast rumbling roar that has the less-experienced crewmen aboard stumbling and shaken. It booms across the growing distance between the dragons, entirely without echo in this great and empty scape of wind and water and far-away ice. After a time, in which Francis watches the dark, ant-like shapes scramble and consult on Erebus’ glacial back, his reply comes in the form of a bellow like a broadside. Terror harrumphs, and then reports: “He says _he_ has the right of it, and that furthermore he is the flag dragon and we ought to catch up with him on his bearing.”

Francis turns to exchange a glance with Blanky, who rolls his eyes in concession. “Well, if the Erebites are so very certain,” he calls to Terror. “Three points east, my dear, and bear down upon them hard.”

“But sir,” Little objects, worrying the engraving on his compass with the pad of one thumb, “we _are_ presently on the agreed heading.”

Francis allows himself a small shrug, turning square to Little’s concerned face and Blanky’s deliberately-not-grinning one. “Commander Fitzjames has spent years at the Academy training for his first command. I’m sure he has some masterful scheme in mind which he has picked up along the way.”

“I spent years at the Academy too, sir,” Little reminds him with some small reproach.

Blanky claps him on the shoulder with enough force to sway him. “Not to worry, lad, we shan’t hold it against you.”

“Certainly we shan’t,” Francis says quietly, stepping forward into their space a little and speaking low so that Little and Blanky have to lean slightly closer to hear, “you have the correct heading. Lieutenant Irving,” he says louder, walking between them towards Terror’s tail and ignoring Blanky’s abrupt barking laughter and Little’s huff of amused surprise, “how are our lookouts faring?”

“Well, sir,” Irving replies readily, one hand holding a pocketwatch and the other wrapped around his harness line to brace his stance on Terror’s sloping flank. “I’ve matched new and experienced eyes, and-”

“Captain Crozier!” a lookout, Evans, sings out from up near Terror’s starboard shoulder. “Signals from Erebus, sir; Commander Fitzjames’ compliments, and three degrees west.”

Francis holds up a hand to acknowledge it. “A credit to you, John; see that no-one gets so cold that they cannot manage their harness clips without noticing.”

“Sir.” Irving nods sharply and abseils with ease towards two younger lads at Terror’s heel.

“Terror,” Francis calls through the loudhailer, but already her wings are tilting as she banks to follow Erebus’ curving line through the wind.

“No harm, then,” Blanky says cheerfully as Francis rejoins them at the shoulder. Little still looks concerned, as if the hand of God or possibly Sir John were liable to erupt from the heavens and smite him for having been right and not pressed his case, or for simply having been right at all. “And you’ve Commander Fitzjames’ compliments to boot.” Blanky grins, and Francis is suddenly aware how very grateful he is that Blanky could be likewise pulled from naval service into the Corps. An ice master is an ice master, sea or sky; but Blanky, of all ice masters, is a sympathetic friend to boot. If frequently an annoyingly perceptive one, and one inclined to copy Fitzjames in his use of _no harm done_ to describe the Commander’s greater failings.

“I’d rather have his competence,” Francis mutters, glowering in Erebus’ direction.

“You may yet,” Blanky soothes. “Give the man time to settle. God knows you had your teething problems in your time.”

Francis winces at the memories that surface: he and Terror, equally furious with one another and themselves for being unable to perform as they thought they ought to; constantly aching and painful after long days running the same drills over and over; the one panicked death spiral they had tumbled into after an error of miscommunication, poor planning and a failed turn resulting in a tight-coiling plummet in which he had genuinely believed that they would both die of broken necks - they would have, were it not for a sudden recollection of their brief training and James and Erebus winging at speed towards them to guide Terror into a gentle landing. He should have hated to have a grumpy older captain critiquing his every move instead of James Ross kindly encouraging and correcting and beaming his sunshine smile upon him. Perhaps he ought to be kinder to James Fitzjames in turn.

But then there is dinner in the little permanent cabin erected upon Erebus, and there is Fitzjames’ speeches about his expertise with dragons; _why, in Nanking…_ and Francis wants very badly to drive a fork through someone’s eye. Fitzjames’, for preference, but his own if no alternative arises. “Tell us about Birdshit Island, why don’t you, James,” he says instead, languid and obviously bored, and the stab of guilty, horrid delight at Fitzjames’ face drawn and pinched with annoyance will have to suffice instead.

* * *

* * *

28th of May, 1847

H.M.D. Erebus and Terror Wintered in the Ice in Lat. 70°5’N Long. 98°23’W Having wintered in 1846-7 at Beechey Island in Lat 74°43’28’’N Long 91°39’15’’W.

After having ascended Wellington Channel to Lat 77° and returned by the West side of Cornwallis Island. Sir John Franklin commanding the Expedition.

All well.

Party consisting of 2 Officers and 6 Men left the dragons on Monday 24th May 1847.

Gm. Gore, Lieut.

Chas. F. DesVoeux, Mate.

* * *

25th April, 1848

H.M.D. Terror and Erebus abandoned aerial travel on the 22nd April, 5 leagues NNW of this, having been beset with medical complaints rendering manned flight impossible since 12th Sept 1846. The officers and crews consisting of 50 souls under the command of Captain F. R. M. Crozier landed here — in Lat. 69°37’42’’ Long. 98°41’.

This paper was found by Lt. Irving under the cairn supposed to have been built by Sir James Ross in 1831 — 4 miles to the Northward — where it had been deposited by the late Commander Gore in June 1847. Sir James Ross’ pillar has not however been found and the paper has been transferred to this position which is that in which Sir J. Ross’ pillar was erected. Sir John Franklin died on the 11th of June 1847 and the total loss by deaths in the Expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men.

James Fitzjames Captain H.M.D. Erebus.

F.R.M. Crozier Captain & Senior Offr.

And start on tomorrow, 26th, for Back’s Fish River.

* * *

* * *

He shall have to tell James.

That is not the worst of it, but it is the most manageably-sized piece of it. His mind can be wrapped around the idea of that: walking slowly over the shale to the little sick-smelling tent and ducking within with a careful, low greeting so that James does not startle at the light and movement intruding upon his weakened eyes; crouching beside the low cot on rapidly-aging knees near James’ head; perhaps running a hand through his greasy, unwashed hair - the only obvious part of the great iceberg of his affection which Francis will allow himself to show - or perhaps not, if James’ scalp stings and bleeds, perhaps a hand on his rattling chest or bony shoulder instead; and James looking up at him with wide, glassy eyes as Francis tells him-

As he-

There is a guttering, bellowing howl of agony. A cry hewn from Arctic rock, rumbling with tumbled stones and pain, ripped from the deep blue depths of the glaciers and booming against the great pale emptiness of the sky. The force of it is visceral and unsteadying; Francis is vaguely aware of his crew staggering backwards - Blanky forced to cling to a nearby marine to keep upright, Little with his hand cupping Jopson’s elbow like a courting couple walking in Hyde Park, Collins sitting abruptly with the astonished expression of a small child - as he himself stumbles and then _runs._

He must stand on the tips of his toes to do it. His arms do not quite meet around Terror’s neck but he digs his blunt fingertips into the chinks of her scales and clings. It hurts already: he can feel blood welling up under his skin and blooming into bruises where he presses his body against the thick, sharp-edged keratin and he is certainly too weak to hang at the corner of her jaw forever. If she were to take off now, without warning, he would be launched into the air alongside her to all too quickly lose his grip and tumble to the rocky ground. Bones would be broken, at the very least; the expedition would have to bury him here, beneath a cairn of stones at the point where, with horrible inevitability, the last things that ever loved Francis Crozier left him.

Terror roars at him and tosses her head, but he simply presses his face into her iridescent black scales and holds her. Everything in him, every animal instinct, wants to run from her, for she is angry and in pain and she could eat him as soon as breathe; but she is also his own. In each and every way which matters. And she is hurting, and so is he, and he will comfort her if he can.

“I can bring him back,” she begs. “I can, I will find him, he will come back with me if I ask him.”

Francis takes in a deep, shuddering breath. Shakes his head against her trembling neck. “He will not, my dear. You know he will not.”

“But I can ask him in ways you cannot,” she says, nose pointing south-east and high as if the spec of his diminishing form could still be seen, like a whisper of a cloud in this vast and empty sky. “I know he would not hear you in your tongue of late, but I - I could-”

Francis risks steadying his stance and Terror’s head droops enough for his boots to stand square on the earth. It does not please him: it seems as much like apathy as inclination to stay. Terror has ever been a forward-thinking creature, disinterested in worst-case scenarios, and resignation fits her ill. “Dearest Terror,” he murmurs into the angle of her jaw. “I am so sorry.”

She screams, rearing her head back briefly with enough force to lift him bodily from the earth. It echoes, bounding and resounding with the great wide nothingness of it all, until the cry could be direct from the landscape itself, screaming its abhorrence of their presence. Terror places him gently upon the ground again and shakes her head until his battered body is forced to relinquish its hold upon her. Then she turns her back on him, walks northwest of the camp, and lies down with her head beneath her wing.

Francis tries not to bite his lip, wary of breaking the thin, fragile skin, and wheels away from the sight. He cannot fathom out what is happening, or why, or which image is more gut-wrenchingly, viscerally painful: Terror, a lone dark lump without comfort or companion, or the cheerful, blank blue of the sky where Erebus’ diminishing form _used_ to be.

* * *

“At least she is still here,” James says, his wide dark eyes turned solemnly upon Francis’ face. He has begun to do this, Francis has noticed: to watch with piercing intensity the slightest movement of Francis’ face, going so far as to tilt his head back in spite of the discomfort to get a better view if Francis sits somewhere awkward. He has given up fathoming out _why_ , exactly, James should ever want to watch the motions of his own pasty, pock-marked visage well-lit and in full view - perhaps it is only that James’ eyes are struggling more and more, these days, and he is sorely deprived of much else _but_ Francis’ face to look at - and so he tries to sit close to James and in the light and to look less like a gargoyle than usual. James, as ever, drinks him in as if - as if Francis is the last thing James will ever see.

It is a prospect Francis refuses to entertain.

“I would not let her go,” he confesses, wiping away the sweat on James’ brow as gently as he can with a damp cloth. “She wanted to go after him, and I would not let her.”

“Francis,” James says. His eyes pin Francis’ own with their sudden severity. “I have no doubt that you did all you could to hold Terror here with us. You would have tried any and all things, I am sure. But Terror is an adult polar dragon and I am _certain_ that you could not have stopped her, had she really wanted to go.” James’ finger wavers as he raises it, but it stabs into Francis’ sternum with surprising force. “She chose you, Francis.”

Francis wraps his fingers around James’ hand and guides it gently back under the covers. James grips back and so their hands clasp around the rough wool of the blanket like a pact. “And if I have damned her for it?” he murmurs, gaze fixed upon the point at which their skin, rough and chapped and imperfect with the pain and strain of it all, meets and is made briefly transcendent with the contact. There is something that smacks of sainthood about it all; the kneeling penitent, the thaumaturgy of clasped hands, the sanctified man enduring torment with wide and wondering eyes. Francis shakes his head and presses James’ hand briefly. “Never - never mind that.”

“Never-? Francis,” James says with his starry, glassy eyes marred slightly by concern, and Francis had never intended this - had not intended to say anything - he is only-

“I am only tired,” he soothes. “And - well. Erebus. Don’t worry yourself over it.”

“I shall,” James says indignantly, shifting on his cot as if to prove some point of which Francis is wholly unaware. Something of his intonation is briefly so like Erebus - the definitive tone, the literal answer, the untamedness of it all - that for a moment Francis wants to laugh; to cry; to bury his head in James’ blankets and scream against his chest. “Who else will you worry over it? Francis,” he says when Francis’ eyes slide away and settle on a wrinkle in the blanket near James’ foot, “Terror will, of all of us, be the very last survivor.” His expression is hard with certainty and Francis, for a moment, allows himself to rest the weight of his worries on the sturdy pillar of his surety. “She was born to live in these climes. I have no doubt that Erebus-” James swallows hard, eyes darting momentarily away, and Francis rubs his thumb over James’ knuckles comfortingly, “-wherever he is, will be dining upon feasts of seal within hours. They will live,” James says, shaking Francis’ hand slightly.

Francis closes his eyes for a moment. James is right, of course; the dragons are wild beasts, born to these regions. Not only will they live, they will thrive out here on the ice the colour of Erebus’ wings, under dancing lights in dark skies against which Terror is indistinguishable. Dragons can never truly be called tame, anyway. That is why Erebus had deserted them: he had simply become too hungry to remember the sounds of human words, or that he held any allegiance to the strange beings who made such noises, or that he was ever himself a creature with a name - a creature who was loved. In her time, if things become as dire as Francis suspects they may, Terror will forget too. Francis only hopes she and Erebus find one another again someday, and that something deep in their souls recognises the other as a friend.

He opens his eyes and offers James a smile. He picks up the burden of concern once more, squirrels it away within himself, and watches James’ face go easy and pleased. “Of course,” he agrees.

James turns his eyes upon the tented ceiling. It is - somewhat unusual; Francis has become accustomed to the weight of James’ gaze ever upon him, and to be suddenly without it is - odd. Like turning from a source of warmth into the cold, Francis misses it more than he cares to say. “Just Erebus, and Terror, and the Tuunbaq, in the end,” he says musingly. “The only things that should have been here. Do you suppose the beast - bear, dragon, whatever it is - is trying to free them from us? To let them go, and be wild.”

Francis looks at James’ hand, still and skeletal upon the blanket, and remembers it gesturing elegantly with a glass of something clear and crystalline in the lamplight as James had confidently elucidated the room: _can’t be a dragon. Anything out here would be feral, of course, and feral dragons haven’t nearly enough intelligence to pull off attacks like these._ He, Francis, had consulted Terror on the matter later, but neither of them had known any better and instead had held only a vague idea that this seemed incorrect. And now, James is wondering if their beastly pursuer might not be attempting grand draconic emancipation, for reasons of empathy and justice and solidarity, and Francis thinks, perhaps, that he loves James for it.

“I’m not sure Terror would wholly appreciate the gesture,” he says, and James rolls his head back to smile gently at him. It’s akin to stepping from shadow into sunlight, to have James’ eyes upon him once more, and Francis basks as subtly as he is able. “But perhaps. Perhaps it simply thinks we should never have come here in the first place. I have-” He swallows hard; thinks of Franklin, of the dragons wintering on the ice far longer than they had believed would be necessary, of the unwell and the dead and the dying - of James, lying pale and sickly and lifeless. He offers him a joyless, taut smile and squeezes his hand. “I have thought the same myself, now and then.”

“I have not.” James’ eyes are wide and glassy and intent, and he is watching Francis as if his life is dependent upon Francis’ comprehension of his point. Francis in turn is powerless but to lean in slightly and fix his gaze upon James in reply, and support, and some expression of his care. James presses his fingers to keep Francis’ attention - as if he could ever look elsewhere. “I have not wished myself anywhere but here, Francis. Here, with-” He breaks off, chews his lip a little: Francis wishes rather desperately to stop him, for he will do himself an injury his body cannot sustain, but can only think to do so with - well. A gesture which James may not appreciate. Instead, Francis inclines his head in understanding and James nods slightly, relaxing into his cot.

The word he didn’t say echoes strangely in the space, ringing with absence in dense, meaningful quiet, and Francis hears that silence all evening like a beautiful tune he cannot shake from his head.

* * *

Terror finds him early in the morning, barging in on a meeting of officers and mates, and presses her head to his forehead with such intent that he stumbles slightly and must wrap an arm around her muzzle to keep his feet. “I will come back to you, Francis Crozier,” she rumbles with absolute certainty, and his blood goes cold regardless.

Blanky puts a hand to his shoulder, ostensibly to steady his balance, but Francis barely feels it. All has been lost to an internal vacuum of blank horror. “Where-?” he breathes.

“I must eat,” she tells him with heartbreaking sorrow. “Francis, I must go now so that I may come back to you. If I do not-”

He is nodding, his eyes closed. It hurts on a level akin to ripping his own stomach out, but she must go. “Yes, of course. I am sorry to have kept you here so long.” 

She makes an unhappy noise, pressing into him more. “You will be unprotected. I cannot help you, and I do not know how long I shall be away.”

“We shall take care of ourselves, my dear,” he soothes, running his hands flat up and down her jaw. “You must promise me to be selfish, Terror, and hunt until you are well enough to return. Promise me,” he says firmly over her rumble of abject unhappiness.

“What if the beast should return?”

“We are well armed, and perfectly capable of keeping it at bay,” he says, feeling in his bones that he is lying. He pulls back to look her in the eye, hands on either side of her massive head. Francis is vaguely conscious that the camp, or at least the majority of it, is watching this exchange: out of the corner of his eye, he can see Blanky slowly extend one hand and place it on Terror’s foreleg; Little looks as though he might weep; some of the mates have gained shuttered, drawn expressions. But he looks at none of it, really. He looks at Terror’s icy eyes, her iridescent black-green-pink-blue borealis scales, her horns tipped with silver like twin stars, as familiar and comforting to him as the stars above by which he learned to plot his position at sea - lifetimes ago now, it feels like. How alone he will be without her, even with the crew and Blanky and James; how lost in the great white blankness of it all without her two guiding stars to ground him. “You will come back to me,” he says, question and comfort.

“I will _always_ come back to you,” she replies.

He cannot watch her fly away.

The camp is altered by her absence, Francis finds: there is a persistent knot of people which develops regularly and dissipates if he or another officer gets too close. Suspicious glances are directed toward the command tent. Excuses are found to be near the supplies tent. It is mutiny, of course; it can be nothing else. He had not realised how much the dragons had bound them together: as if, in their presence, they had remembered that they were crews, and that alone they are simply a mass of people, disorganised and dying. There is little to be done, except arrest the ringleaders in advance of their crime, and Francis has too little faith in his own authority to request this of the marines. There is no call to incite action if he can hold it off any longer, so he thinks instead of what they will ask of him, and resigns himself to giving it.

It is more than he had hoped, but no less than he had expected.

“We will take your food, Crozier,” Hickey says with confidence. It is perhaps a confidence he has a right to; he lurks behind the right shoulder of Sgt Tozer with a little smug grin on his pointed, fox-like face. With him are the remaining marines, most of the mates, Mr Diggle - even Hodgson, which hurts more than Francis would care to admit. He had not expected it of the officers, the men at his command table, the men who had looked him in the eye for weeks now. Hodgson can only look at his feet, now.

“Will you spare any for the sick?” Francis says calmly, hands tucked behind his back. He stands at the head of his own, smaller party of men; it is a point of useless pride to do so, for the marines hold all their firepower and so he neither protects nor threatens anyone at all, but. It is not nothing, he thinks.

Hickey tilts his head and his grin widens. “Defeats the point of leaving them, wouldn’t you say? You’ve clearly thought about what we’d ask for. You _know_ we won’t spare any. It’s a matter of survival - Captain Crozier knows that,” he says, loud enough to speak to every man still holding the line - Crozier’s line - behind Francis. “We’ll fare better with fewer men and more to eat. We’ll make better progress, too; no waiting for sick men to die, or for great beasts to come back here and eat us instead.”

“The bear-” Francis begins, but Hickey waves him away.

“I don’t mean the bear. The bear can be controlled.” Hickey’s grin remains nastily sprawled across his face and Francis has to reign in an abrupt wave of righteous fury as he says, languidly, “I mean your dragon, _sir._ Tell me, is it still yours if it has abandoned you?”

“Terror will return,” he grinds out through gritted teeth. _There is no alternative,_ he tells the slimy voice in his head which sounds so poisonously like Hickey. _She promised._

Hickey looks upon him with condescension and mocking pity. “Like Erebus has?” Francis breathes in sharply, the words like a wound. Hickey catches the flinch, and smiles. “Don’t lie to your men. This shall be Lieutenant Fairholme’s rescue party all over again.”

Francis squares his shoulders and looks Hickey directly in the eye. “Men,” he says loudly, his voice clear and steady on the freezing wind. “Mr Hickey intends to take our food supplies with him and his party. It is therefore my recommendation that you go with him to partake of his generosity.”

A host of emotions play out over Hickey’s face in quick succession: surprise, first and briefest, that Francis would do so little to stop the proceedings; then irritation, which Francis had expected. Hickey would read more supporters as a triumph on his own part and a blow on Francis’ - a demonstration of his own superiority in judgement and leadership. But it is, most pressingly, an increased number of men to feed, and so a detriment to his survival plan. The annoyance gives way to expectant waiting; there is such presumption in his face, in his confidence that enough men would abandon Crozier for Hickey to find them an inconvenience, in his permanent smug smile. And then, after a decent pause, a twitch of real fury. For not one man behind Crozier has so much as shifted his boots upon the shale.

Francis is pleased, and he is sorry for it. He has nothing with which to reward such loyalty but hope that Terror will keep her word.

Still; it is his turn to tilt his head slightly at Hickey. “Gentlemen, we shall not keep you from your journey.” He catches Hodgson’s eye briefly and nods at him; Hodgson looks away quickly. “I wish you success of it,” he says, and is almost surprised to find how much he means it.

* * *

“Twenty.”

James raises his eyebrows briefly. It seems an effort and Francis presses a damp cloth to his forehead gently, as if removing the weight of sweat might ease the expression. “Twenty,” he murmurs back, dry tongue darting out to touch dry, broken lips. “And thirteen of them sick. Hauling will be-”

“We’ll not be hauling,” Francis says. “We’ll stay where we are.”

James frowns and shakes his head slightly. His hair fans out around him, grown-out and lank with sweat, and Francis has the strangest fancy, for a moment, of a vast lake of warm water: of floating in it with careless ease and running his fingers through James’ hair; of fussing with soaps and oils and hot irons under James’ strict instruction; of gently and carefully returning the lustre to this dear man, wonderful and worn.

He settles for brushing a strand out of James’ eye, trailing just the very tips of his fingers over his gaunt, fine-boned face.

“Francis, you must go on. Get south, to Back’s Fish - you promised me.” James’ eyes are glassy and dark like a lotus-eater’s, like a beautiful doll, but he watches Francis with an intensity which borders upon frightening. Francis reaches out to settle him but James simply catches hold of his sleeve and clings with weak, grasping fingertips. “You promised.”

Francis closes his eyes on a sigh. He remembers their trek out to the Victory Point well, for, despite everything, his heart had sung for a walk with his dear James. As if they had been a courting couple wandering Hyde Park of a spring afternoon. He remembers James’ past like a secret, like a gift, like an oath of allegiance, and shaking his shoulder: for better and for worse. He remembers signing his name beside James’ in an indelible show of solidarity; seeing them shoulder to shoulder for as long as paper and ink can last; finding it pleasing, somewhere deep in his soul. And then, before the walk out of one another’s company and into the mass of the crew, James had said: _Back’s Fish River, then._

_Yes._

James’ face tipped up to the sky. _I shall be pleased to see something green again._

Francis, smiling crookedly. Adoring. _We all will._

His head tilted, hair spilling over one shoulder, gaze fixed with piercing intensity upon Francis. _I want to see you pleased._

Dry swallow. Breath. _You will_.

_Promise?_

Francis presses James’ hand gently. “When the sick have recovered. We have too few able men to haul at present.” He angles his voice for soft and soothing, but James’ frown deepens and he fidgets with agitation.

“How are they to get well? We have nothing to eat, Francis; you should push on while you are still strong enough to do so. There is no sense-”

“I am not leaving men here to die alone!” he breaks in, unexpectedly angry at the idea. He has misplaced his calm and has nothing to lean on against his horror. To die alone in this place, in the great bleak abyss - it is not to be thought of. And to be the one who left them- “James, I will not do it.”

“You must!” he snaps. James is angry too, now; or perhaps simply scared, and doing all he can to hide it. Francis strokes James’ knuckles comfortingly - his hand is batted away, and his sleeve instead held in James’ grip. “You have to live. God wants you to live.”

“Terror will return,” Francis tries and James tosses his head, disregarding it. His vehemence fuels him, it seems, but Francis supposes he should have expected nothing less; James has always loved the men before all reason and sense.

“Then you may return for those who are left,” James says, as if this is a perfectly conscionable course of action.

“I shall do no such thing!” He pulls his arms away, breaking James’ grip with frightening ease and instead wrapping his fingers around James’ wrists to pin him still. James glowers up at him and for a moment it is like all those dinners of aeons ago; furious, bored, needling one another under Sir John’s vaguely paternal apathy. Only now it matters so much more, for Francis is _right_ and will not stand down. And James is so ill that he cannot push back against the hold. And they are so close now, Francis’ bulk leaning over James’ form and their faces less than a foot apart, and more than that they are _close_ , they _see_ one another, with understanding and care, and Francis loves what he sees there. He wants, very badly, to close the distance and press his lips to James’. To breathe life into him, to push the strength of his own heartbeat into James’ body, to simply hold him close for as long as the universe allows him.

 _Close is nothing,_ he hears himself say. _It’s worse than nothing._

“You promised,” James whispers.

Francis shakes his head, fight crumbling within him. “I promised that you would see me pleased. This does not please me at all.”

“But you have to,” James begs, a tear sliding with glacial slowness across his temple and into his hair. “Francis, I can’t go on - please-”

Dread settles over his shoulders like a heavy, familiar coat. He shakes his head. “James-”

A cleared throat at the tent opening; shuffling feet on the shale. Francis turns, rubbing his eye quickly on his wrist to glower upon the interloper. Bridgens blinks. “I’m very sorry, sirs, to interrupt. But Captain Crozier, you ought to come now.”

Francis turns to James, agonised, but he just slumps back into his blankets. “Go,” he says, pushing ineffectually at Francis’ chest, and so Francis summons all his will and lets James’ wrists fall against his chest.

He hears the call first, too busy blinking in the sudden bright daylight; that distinctive cry, as attuned to his senses as an infant to its mother’s, echoing high and lonely above them. “Terror,” he murmurs, and then he is sprinting for the clearing at the centre of camp. It hasn’t been long enough, surely; she will have to go again, if she should even choose to land; but she is here, a shadow in the sky, and he squints at her like she is a pretty mirage and inclined to vanish at a moment’s notice.

He draws to a halt beside Blanky and they stare up at her together. He forgets, sometimes, the size of her; the improbability of such a thing flying at such altitude with so little appearance of effort. But then two small shapes detach from her silhouette, growing larger as they fall, and ultimately materialising as manna from heaven: two seals, spotted and fat, still warm, smacking with unmistakable reality into the earth.

Francis cannot speak. Can barely even breathe. _They might live. All of them, they might yet live._ Blanky turns his head up to the sun and howls in triumph; Terror bellows in reply and soars away toward the sea. She might be laughing; Little certainly is, high breathy giggles like a child. But Francis cannot move; he only sways in startled, blindsided delight as Blanky shakes his shoulder and laughs at his inaction. He must return to James: he must clasp his face between both hands and grin with all his gap-toothed awkwardness and say: _there now. Do I not keep my promises?_

* * *

They carry on in this way for two whole weeks before all goes, once more, abruptly south. Terror brings them seals every few days and they learn to ration the precious meat, to stomach its foreign flavour, to boil and tenderise every last piece so that even the weakest of their small party might eat. Most days, the weakest man is James, and Francis spends hours quietly sitting by his bedside through James’ exhaustion and frustration and despair, feeding him blubbery, tasteless broth. James turns his face away, murmurs that there is no reward in it; Francis hums and has him sit up a little more and listens to his own heart sing, for James props himself upon his elbows and turns back under his own strength.

They are in conference when they hear it. Terror roars her earth-shattering greeting and deposits her cargo near where the healthiest and sturdiest members of their party sit ringed upon empty crates, considering their course of action. James sits beside Francis - wrapped in a blanket and upright by force of determination alone, but clear-eyed, and in the bright arctic light Francis fancies that his hair has regained some of its old sheen.

Francis tears his eyes away from James and returns his attention to the conversation. Ned Little has been pushing for a resumption of travel, now that the majority of the men are well enough at least to walk; they need not make much progress every day, but with good, fresh food they ought to make up at least some of the distance to Back’s Fish River and their best hope of rescue before the winter sets in. In contrast, Bridgens advocates remaining in place until men and dragon are all well enough to attempt aerial travel to the coverts in Hudson Bay. Overwintering further south, particularly where Terror might find it easier to stock up on game, certainly has its draws, but Peglar and Jopson would still need hauling over the shale and the strain upon the few healthier men would be-

Terror lets out a horrendous shriek high above them and Francis reflexively jerks to his feet. His eyes follow her unusually uncontrolled descent, tracking her every move for signs of injury and its cause but finding none until-

She slams to the ground, body low, tail raised and wings outstretched in an effort to seem yet bigger and more murderous than she already is. Chunks of shale are snapped and spat out from under her feet in a spray of grey stone but to this Francis pays no mind, for Terror presently stands between his crew and the Tuunbaq.

He has never seen it in the daylight, and finds it both worse and less terrible than he had feared. Its body makes no proportional sense: its neck is long and draconic, extended from broad, bear-like shoulders and with no commensurate length of tail to counterbalance it. Its paws end in talons to rival Erebus’, and yet it is vastly smaller overall - merely half the size again of an ordinary polar bear, perhaps a third of Terror’s size. Despite the bright, clear light, Francis cannot discern with confidence whether the creature’s body is coated in scales or fur. If he had to choose, he would say that the thing was covered in densely-set, six-inch long shards of crystal clear ice.

Its head - its head defies description. At every turn Francis sees some new angle in it: a bear’s ears, a dragon’s muzzle, the brow and jaw and snarl of a man. And the same icy blue eyes as Terror; as the glaciers; as the sky.

It snarls, and Francis only realises he is attempting to run when James’ vice-like grip upon his forearm stops him dead. “ _Terror!"_ he howls, and the voice that issues from him is high and desperate and scared.

“Francis - hold back, man - you will be hurt,” James is saying, wrapping his arms around Francis’ chest and keeping him in place. The whole camp is frozen and silent but for them; all eyes are upon the dragon and the creature.

“You will not come any closer,” Terror growls. It is as if she is speaking in two tongues at once: her own, draconic rumble, and Nunavut overtop.

The Tuunbaq tilts its horrible mishmash head on one side, and then replies in kind: a nasty snarling undercut by smooth and lilting words. Francis is glad, as he had not been then, that in those last weeks of drunken haze he had been unable to prevent Doctor Goodsir and his little dictionary from attempting to make the dragons his first pupils. “Why must I cede my ground to these...things? They do not belong here, as you and I do.”

“They are mine,” Terror says simply. “And what is mine must be treasured.”

“Are they yours?” Tuunbaq asks languidly. “Or are you theirs? You were taken from here ten years ago by whalers for money and exploitation before you were even born. And now, you must wear a harness; you are underfed, for you do not know how to hunt correctly; and your mate is lost to you. What do you gain?”

“Underfed?” Francis mumbles with deadened, numb horror and James’ arms tighten around him briefly. Terror shoots him an agonised, guilty look, before puffing herself up once more. The Tuunbaq looks - almost puzzled, but the expression is not at home on its face and passes quickly. It is all - too much. Francis cannot comprehend the events beyond their component parts; the big picture is lost to him in a haze of confusion and fear.

Terror raises her proud head high above the creature and gazes down upon it. “I shall not come here again,” she says, voice clear, calm and certain. “I shall go nowhere I do not care to go. I shall do nothing I do not care to do. We have all spent long enough angling for the favour of men undeserving of our effort.” Francis reaches up and fumbles blindly until his hand settles over James’; he cannot understand the words, but Francis would comfort and support him nevertheless. “But these men,” Terror continues, “are _mine._ And if you attempt to reach them, then I shall stop you.”

The Tuunbaq appears to consider this for a moment. “But in the seas and the skies where you were always meant to be - are you not at home here?”

Terror looks deliberately over her shoulder and looks Francis impassively in the eye. Turning back to the Tuunbaq, she says, “No more than usual. I was born between wind and water, between the world and the wild. I have swum in warm seas on the other side of the world, I have climbed volcanoes named for me, I have crossed the equator twice. And I have been at home throughout, for I have brought him with me. Why should this place be any different?”

“I am thinking of you,” Tuunbaq says gently. It is almost parental in its concern, head low and voice crooning, and Francis would believe no threat of it, were it not for those vast sharp teeth behind its pale, fleshy, oddly man-like lips.

Terror tosses her head in a great, humanoid shrug. “It is too late; I am full-made, now. I shall not come back.”

“Then I am sorry for it,” Tuunbaq says, and Francis believes it. The set of that strange head is settled and non-confrontational, with a curious openness on its morphous face, and Francis believes it: that James may have been right about great polar emancipation; that the expedition simply should not have come to this place; and that it cares for Terror, and is sorry that it cannot do more for this great and precious being.

Francis feels a great kinship with Tuunbaq, for a moment.

“We shall be gone soon,” Terror says uncertainly, deflating from her stance and wrongfooted by this concern.

The Tuunbaq casts its face up to the sky for a moment, and then offers them all a nauseating look at its huge and terrible teeth in what might, possibly, be a smile. “Yes,” it says. “I think you will.”

And then it shambles away; alone in the vast landscape until it abruptly disappears against the rolling shale, and is no more.

* * *

Francis is sleeping curled up in the cradle of Terror’s foreleg and neck. She demands it. Besides, she radiates heat from the sunlight of the day and scales are no less comfortable than stones; he has adjusted quickly, and indeed thinks he perhaps sleeps better here than he had before.

This theory is confirmed by Erebus and another dragon of similar size beating through the skies and landing a short distance away, to the great excitement of the crew, and Francis only becoming aware of it when Terror picks him up in her teeth by the collar of his coat and carries him, sputtering and kicking, like a kitten over to the new arrivals.

“Francis!” Erebus says, cheerful and clear, and Francis abruptly stops wriggling. The dragon sounds just as he always had: puppyish and excitable, and nothing like the vague and absent beast he had been before his departure. Francis presses the back of one fist to his mouth and blinks hard.

“Erebus,” he says at last, and Terror deposits him gently upon the floor so that Erebus’ head can thud onto the floor by Francis’ boots and he can be appropriately scratched behind the ears.

“I ate a whale!” Erebus announces with pride. “I didn’t like it.”

Francis chokes on an embarrassingly wet laugh. “Did you?” This must surely be a dream; a beautiful, wonderful, realistic dream, for it cannot be that Francis is simply being _handed_ all that he could desire. It simply cannot be.

He looks up at the other dragon, a female pale polar he vaguely recognises as Victoria, although she had been a hatchling when they had departed. She is watching Erebus with an expression of mild bemusement whilst her crew swarms about unclipping themselves and their supplies and running towards him-

“Francis!” James Ross hollers, and Francis is almost bowled off his feet by an embrace designed for a man with more food in him and a proportionately greater quantity of mass upon his bones. But that is no matter, for it is a great thing indeed to be held by a man of well-fed substance and to see the supplies and hope which he has brought and to know that, for a while, upon his heavy head can lie the crown. Francis, for now, may simply be held; Ross can sort all else.

“Good God, man,” Ross says, pulling back. “Erebus said - I mean-” He huffs, shaking Francis gently by the shoulders for want of anything else to say. “I am very glad to see you,” he says at last.

“And I you,” Francis says - rather redundantly, for he cannot remember how to stop smiling and is not overly inclined to try. “How - how are you here?” he cannot help but ask.

Ross tips his chin at Erebus, presently coiled around and affectionately rumbling at Terror. “I have no idea how he did it, but we heard a thunderous crash at breakfast time a fortnight ago and there he was, in the gardens of Aston Abbotts. He won’t rest, he won’t eat, he won’t let anyone ride him; simply demands that I come here with him and rescue you all. We’ve brought doctors, food - what do you need?”

Francis runs a hand through his hair and stares out into the emptiness, needing the absence for a moment to recover. So much, so fast, all of it good, but-

Things must now change. He has been with these people for many years now, and with the arrival of Ross and his men the bubble is broken. Francis must share his crew and relinquish responsibility for them; they are free, now, to go far from him when not half an hour ago they had been held together with the strongest bonds of fellowship and necessity. And - and now James might leave him. They might not be together as they have been: there can be others, now, with whom to share every intimacy and secret, and James might well choose these people over him. Francis is not quite prepared to countenance that yet.

But he puts on his best smile for Ross, and says, “We need to go home, James. Back where we belong.”

* * *

London is unfamiliar and yet unchanged by their absence. It is not quite what he had expected it to be, but is also exactly how he remembers it; the city is not what he had thought, and perhaps it never was.

“You thought too much of the place, then,” James tells him upon expressing this view, and Francis turns from the window over the court to glance back at him. James is reclining in a leather wingback chair with his legs kicked out and crossed before him like some grand old admiral in his club, waiting for the arrival of his brandy and soda or the start of his inevitable nap, whichever should come first. Francis swallows a smile at the sight of it; if the Corps keep them waiting much longer, James might well spend some of the wait asleep and then the entirety of the meeting tremendously crotchety about it. He is recovering well, although still rather slimmer than Francis would like, but he has become fond of an afternoon snooze somewhere comfortable and warm and is rather less enamoured of anyone pointing it out. But since usually this happens in Francis’ favourite armchair between the fire and his bookshelf full of scientific treatises and expedition accounts, it is only ever brought up in a little gentle teasing over the cruel requisitioning of the best seat in Francis’ rooms and tolerated reasonably well.

“I thought you liked London,” Francis says, putting aside the strange tugging feeling in his chest that accompanies such recollections.

James shrugs, winding a strand of hair around one finger and tugging on it thoughtfully. “A means to an end, I suppose. And it was the nearest and largest covert when I was a child, so it’s always had its draws.”

“Here be dragons,” Francis says, amused, and James raises his eyebrows and smiles.

“Mmm. How much longer, I wonder.”

Francis glances back over one shoulder into the courtyard of Somerset House at the great mass of scales there. Erebus is barely small enough to fit into the square, but there he certainly is; Terror is mostly lying on top of him and between them absolutely none of the entrances or exits to the Aerial Corps offices are usable. Francis can’t quite shake the impression that the four of them are holding their superiors hostage. “You suppose that we’ll start a trend, do you?”

James shrugs again. “I almost hope so. The history of the Corps is a long tale of _occasionally_ remembering that dragons are living beasts to be treated with the respect due any man, and if this reminds them, then-” James sighs. Shrugs again. Sinks listlessly into the seat.

Francis crosses the room and sits on a small embroidered footrest by James’ knees. James watches him curiously as he leans in intently. “Perhaps it will,” he offers, although he too can see the limited likelihood; there is some equivalence, after all, in the respect afforded by polite society to dragons, Irishmen, and bastards. It is a matter they know well enough.

James props his head up with elegant fingers to his temple and offers Francis a crooked half-smile. “Well, never mind. My favourite dragons have become half-feral, apparently - a term new to science, no less, and a smarter turn of phrase than _opinionated and independent buggers_ -” Francis huffs a laugh and James grins. “-and I’ve retired, so what’s it to me?”

“There’s the court martial,” Francis points out, not very seriously.

James waves a hand idly. “Oh, that. Erebus has promised to eat anyone who opposes me.”

“Really?” Francis says, raising an eyebrow.

“Not at all,” James replies with no small measure of delight, “but they don’t know that, and Terror would certainly threaten it if we asked her to.”

“It would be more of a job _stopping_ her,” Francis mutters dryly, glancing over his shoulder as Terror’s tail flicks past the window and James laughs.

“So. Nothing to it. You shall be winging your way before teatime.” Francis looks back to find James’ expression oddly shuttered and closed; all ostensible cheer and no substance. “Where will you go? I shall expect a postcard.”

“The Canadian wilderness, I am told; I gave Terror an atlas and an hour of Lieutenant Little’s time, and between them they have our situation quite figured out. There’s a little town a few miles away, but we should be rather isolated.” James nods and smiles in a fashion which is almost perfectly convincing - only, Francis has spent too long looking at James. His eyes find James wherever he is, as sure as a compass finds north, and then he cannot look anywhere else, for what could possibly compare? He _knows_ James. Adores him, in fact. And James is not content, and such things cannot possibly be. “You could come with us,” he says abruptly.

James blinks, eyes wide, but his expression is no longer closed away. “Francis-”

“Erebus probably already thinks you are,” Francis barrels on, determined to express the entirety of the thought before James can decline it. There is a slight wrinkle in the pressed crease of James’ trousers and it captivates Francis’ attention; it is easier to fix his gaze upon James’ knees and tell the neatly pressed fabric there of his heart’s desires than it is to watch James inevitably frown and decline. “And I know it would be very quiet, with only the dragons and me for company, but they suppose that they’ll fly back here upon occasion to visit Sir James and you could go with them, if you wished - and you know the worst of my faults as a living companion, now. I would - we would like your company, James. If you haven’t any better offers.”

James is shaking his head gently and smiling rather incredulously when Francis chances to look up after a good interval of silence. “Better- Francis, who else do you suppose is inviting me to stay?”

Francis frowns. James is handsome and charming and popular, the toast of the town; he should have invitations pouring through his postbox. “Any number of people,” he says gruffly, pressing his thumb against one of the brass tacks of James’ chair and watching the skin go white with pressure rather than meet James’ amused eyes.

One finger presses lightly against the thin skin of his jaw and Francis is so startled at the contact that he follows the gentle push without resistance. James is smiling softly, tinged with wonder: “None at all,” he says softly. “I write to my brother, but he is too busy with children and work to keep me; my feral dragon is an embarrassment to my academy friends; I am a half-rotted, underfed thing who cannot sleep the whole night through and must instead snooze in the armchair of my dear old captain. Where else should I go?”

Francis frowns, catching hold of James’ hand where it still presses gently against his jaw. “I did not know-” he mumbles.

James raises a wry eyebrow. “Are you any better?” he murmurs, reaching out the other hand to trace the dark circle beneath Francis’ right eye with devastating tenderness and only the barest contact. Francis shivers, eyes shuttering briefly closed as his skin comes up in goosebumps. “Francis,” James says softly, “I think you might be the thing that thinks the best of me in all the world.”

“So you will come?” Francis breathes.

James puffs out a breath, pretending to think about it. “Well, I suppose you’ll be taking the armchair, so I’d better, else I’ll never sleep again.” Francis shoots him an unimpressed look for this joke and James replies with a lopsided smile. “And if Erebus and Terror demand it.”

And then, suddenly, Francis cannot quite bear it - cannot bear the idea that James might only think Francis asks to oblige the dragons, that James might only come for their sakes, that they might live together for the rest of their lives in close company and companionship and yet Francis would still never get to have James, not in every way, not in the way he most wants him. _Close._ He curses the word.

“And if _I_ should demand it?” Francis blurts out, closing his eyes and hurling caution, good sense and previous experience to the wind. James makes a querying noise and taps his cheekbone gently, but Francis shakes his head and keeps his eyes resolutely closed. “I do not wish to be parted from you. Ever.”

When he opens his eyes a crack, it is to see James staring at him with a look of rather guarded hope. “Is that so?” he replies, voice carefully even. “I shall have to invent a few new dinner stories, else _ever_ might not be a very long time - I suppose you might claim that Erebus ate me in a fit of pique, or-”

“I love you,” Francis says, cutting through what could well have been a very long-winded ramble about the simultaneous use of dragons as weapons and alibis. He swallows hard in the abrupt silence. “I am - the worst sort of man. You know the rest of my vices, you ought to know this one. And it is-” he chokes on a laugh and glances out of the window at Erebus and Terror piled atop one another in a huge, coiling yin-yang and fast asleep, “-it is the _very_ _worst_ romantic cliché, and so I do not suppose that your storyteller’s heart will bear it.”

James-

James smiles like the sunrise. “My dear Francis,” he murmurs and leans carefully, deliberately closer. Francis remains frozen, barely breathing. James lays his long hands on either side of Francis’ head, cradling his jaw in those long, elegant fingers. “It is the very worst cliché in the whole world,” he says as seriously as he can manage with each word skipping with contained laughter, “to fall in love with the captain of one’s dragon’s mate.” Francis’ eyes close against the mortification of it all, but James taps the crow’s feet by his eyes until they open again. “But I shall forgive you for it,” he murmurs with a smile, “for I do love you ever so much.”

Francis stutters out a breathy laugh. “Truly?”

James beams and leans in and - and Francis cannot quite believe himself, but he places a finger on James’ lips and glances nervously at the office door, behind which lies their court martial and various generals who rather despise them. James huffs in annoyance. “Francis,” he says deliberately, in spite of the finger, “may I _please_ refer you back to our previous conversation about the large dragons who could, hypothetically, eat the entire Corps command and who consider themselves our particular friends, and also to our discussion of moving to Canada where no such people can ever trouble us again, and then can you kiss me, please?”

A thrill runs through Francis at the words, and James can probably feel him tremble; it certainly inspires a grin of triumph in him. This is rather irritating, so Francis frowns with even more determination. “You _may_ refer me back, but I will point out that the Canada plan does involve a great deal of privacy for a very long time, where we might more comfortably spend our time doing-”

But he has moved his finger in order to articulate his point. James pounces like a cat; and he is kissing him as well as he can, for neither of them can stop smiling; and Francis couldn’t give a damn if all of London and the Queen herself is watching. For he has _his_ dragons, and _his_ future, and James.

**Author's Note:**

> i have various notes.
> 
> erebus and terror are both polar dragons. these come in two distinct colour formations (light and dark) resembling either the ice or the aurora borealis. polar dragons pair for life, always with a dragon of the other colour type but not always of the other gender, with such consistency that there is academic debate about the possibility of dragon soulmates. it's cute. they're also pretty big - terror's head is probably six feet by three feet, whereas erebus' head is the approximate size of a ford fiesta. i don't know if that was clear enough in the fic because i really struggled to think of a more period appropriate measuring system than a car first produced in 1976.
> 
> james, in their first meeting, references the old sea shanty [heart of oak.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do7kQqLLmNM&ab_channel=TheLongestJohns) now, i like the royal navy and the age of sail, and even i think that this shanty is the most obnoxious thing ever produced by, for, or about the royal navy. but it is also catchy and fun and kind of a bop, so.
> 
> james' navigational mishap is a direct reference to real jfj's navigational mishap, which francis just. watched him make. like an Arsehole. his running about rescuing people on dragonback is a sort of riff on him diving into the mersey to rescue a drowning man before the euphrates expedition: objectively, very brave, but also a damnfool dangerous thing to do.
> 
> i renamed hms enterprise victoria. it seemed very much like the sort of thing the victorians would do, if they had any sort of standards at all; i recently learned that sweetlips was a common 19th century dog name, and it has been added to the long list of things for which i will never forgive the victorians.
> 
> in researching jcr, i learned that his house at aston abbotts had a lake and two islands, which he named erebus and terror. adorable. in this universe, this is because erebus lands on one of them and refuses to leave it until jcr agrees to the rescue attempt and per antarctic exploration bagsy rules, that makes it his.
> 
> thanks for reading.


End file.
